


Of Pens And Coffee Cups

by TeaLovingTooru



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 08:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaLovingTooru/pseuds/TeaLovingTooru
Summary: Keith sits behind his desk, staring at the over-enthusiastic working Lance on a daily basis.[OR:] Keith hates people using his pens, but has no qualms letting Lance use them.





	Of Pens And Coffee Cups

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiannaCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiannaCat/gifts), [Martyplart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martyplart/gifts).



> This is one of my three pieces for the Klance Reverse Bang 2018!! I got to work with an amazingly supportive team, who helped me through thick and thin when it came to my securities about writing, so I am very thankful!! 
> 
> You can find the vv understanding artist, Mary, here: https://twitter.com/mg_arty (I absolutely adore-) You can find the art, however, right here: https://twitter.com/mg_arty/status/987741755385761792?s=19
> 
> My beta was the ever so damn relatable, Tori, who you can find at: www.littlebird12j.tumblr.com or on AO3 as Kianna Cat!!
> 
> I kinda had like... free reign on this story and tbh, the plot is a bit strange, but it's kind of like a metaphor, so I hope you can all swing with that!!! The original summary and what happened... well. You can see a change.

Life in the office was… fun. Probably. He supposed. Ok. It really was, but… being in the same place for so long with nothing new to look forward to was just… lackluster. Not that Keith had ever really been one who needed anything big and exciting, but with work, it got a little boring.

He had the same routine every morning.

5:30, wake up and stare at the wall for fifteen minutes until he felt he could cope with being awake. 5:45, get in the shower. 5:46, get out of the shower and grab his towel that he’d forgotten on the edge of the b-

Ok. So maybe that list is a bit too specific, but still. Everyday he would get up, pick up his coffee, go to work, see the same faces for sometimes eight plus hours, come home and order takeout, pass out on the couch and repeat.

He didn’t want anything extraordinary to happen, per say, he just… he wished there could be something else to his day. He wanted colour and vibrancy to spice up the beige tint everything had taken on. It was mostly shitty because he was wondering what was happening with his eyes. The walls had looked white when he started interning there and during the time it turned into a real job, they turned an odd… high school classroom tan. It was terrifying. The number of times he had deja vu or revelations about things he used to do then was weirdly high.

But here he sat in his cubicle, Allura, his branch manager standing in front of his desk with that creepily sweet smile, putting her index finger on one of the gel pens in his cup and twirling it, only bothering him quite a lot.

“What do you need, Allura?” He smiled sardonically, grabbing his pen cup and pulling it closer to him, out of her reach. He hated people touching his damn pens.

“Wow. Nice way to treat someone who’s about to offer you more money.”

“Don’t be-”

“Dude, I am totally kidding, you were my freshman. I will never get over the sight of you with braces and a clarinet case at your side, you marching dweeb.”

“Not everyone can be in choir, I would have choked in that penguin suit, so you can calm down.” He laughed, relaxing in his chair and smiling at the memories.

Yes, his manager had been his high school upperclassman and she had also been a huge staple in the high school scene, one of the only choir kids who was actually really, really nice and close with the band kids. The rest kind of just… pretended like the band hated them and he had seen so much relationship drama go do in that choir room, it was almost scary how dramatic they were, but Keith would have been lying if he said their band didn’t have it’s fair share of drama. When he was a junior, one of their drum majors legitimately rip a trombone from one of their members hands and throw it across the field because he found out that he had kissed his girlfriend. That had been an awkward rehearsal.

Anyways. After high school and his beginning his third year first semester of university, he had run into Allura in a coffee shop in the most cheesy scenario ever known to man, where she told him her company was looking for interns. The rest is history.

“Keith, now is not the time for a reflection, but I really need to make sure you remember the fact that I have seen you in a suit about a hundred times, about ninety-eight of those being in high school, because of band.”

“Ok, first of all, that is not at all a realistic statistic.”

“Oh dear- you know what? None of this even matters. I came in here for a reason. I need you to train a newbie.”

And that had Keith groaning and cursing the lord for putting him on this miserable Earth.

“Allura, no… I hate doing training. They are so incompetent! When I had to train that Wyatt kid, I found him crying in the copy room because he forgot how to use it and I had literally just showed him. I walked to the bathroom and when I came back he was crying, looked at me and said ‘I don’t get it’!”

“You know that you too were once a new hire, correct?” She laughed, thinking about Wyatt, who ended up just becoming Pidge’s personal assistant, somehow, but was still paid through the company.

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t cry in the copy room. I waited until you were gone and I hid in the janitor's closet.”

“What? How did you even get in there, the doors are like… always locked?”

“I snagged the keys from your boyfriend’s belt.”

“Shiro is not my boyfriend, you twit.”

“I feel like you shouldn’t get so defensive because that’s my brother and he isn’t even ugly, so why.”

“Um, because he knew me back in my greasy t-zone days- you know what, Keith, I don’t have to explain anything to you, I am just. Whatever. Anyways. The new hire will be in here in probably fifteen minutes?”

“Are you making them fill out that stupid fucking packet?”

“Put a quarter in the swear jar, Keith. And yes, yes, I am. He seems… too happy for this to be the job he is getting.”

Now, some of you may be wondering about this packet. Is it the routine ‘new hire’ packet that employee’s typically get when starting a new company? No. You see, after Allura hired Pidge and the young girl took a computer apart just to use it to snag some parts before telling Allura, verbatim: “Hey, that’s dismantled, so kinda broken, so you should probably order another one. Just to be safe,” she created a type of… longevity packet for you to fill out, with a signed contract inserted that says you will not dismantle any company property. Normally, an employee would have been fired over that, but Pidge really is good at being part of the IT crew, not to mention the fact that the computer she dismantled just so happened to be Allura’s old and very shitty company provided computer, which meant she could now buy a newer and better one with the budget because technically… the company broke it. (And if she had to plead with the owner, who just so happens to be her dad, it doesn’t really need to be said, because he gives her pretty much everything.)

“How do you think he’ll do here?”

“Now, Keith, you know I can’t gossip about other employee’s. Who do you take me for? Lotor?” She laughed at her own joke, leaning closer to whisper to him. “I think he’ll do really well, also, he is definitely your type, so.”

Keith’s nose scrunched.

_Dating an intern that I have to train…? No thanks, I don’t care how hot he is._

Is what he wanted to say, but suddenly, a guy he had never seen before was at the opening of the cubicle, handing Allura the packet with a cheeky grin that spoke volumes of trouble for Keith already, because she was right. He was his type. But seriously, this kid was probably like… fresh out of high school, it would be weird for so many reasons.

“Alright, I am all finished! What’s next?”

_Oh my God, he is so eager too, I feel so bad for him, this job can get so fucking boring._

“Keith, another quarter and please refrain from accidentally speaking your thoughts out loud, I don’t want to know what goes on in that dark space.”

“Haha, that’s real funny, Allura, how about you go and shove your entire tuna sandwich in your mouth like you did Valentine's Day of senior year because you were so nervous to tell Shiro you l-”

“Haha, that’s enough grape juice for you, Keith! I know how it makes you hallucinate things that NEVER HAPPENED.”

“I don’t even like grape juice.”

“Shut up, let me have some dignity.”

“No.”

“Hey, Lance, you should ask Keith what he named his clarinet back in high school or about his multitude of Britney Spears posters for his shrine.”

“You said you would never tell anybody about the shrine!”

“You said you would forget the sandwich!”

“Touche.”

And just like that, Allura was strutting out the door, eyeing him so as to say not to say anything else weird about her.

He told Lance to take a seat in the chair across from his desk, the lanky boy smiling awkwardly and sitting up really straight in the chair.

“You don’t have to be so stiff, I’m not gonna rip your head off-”

“Oh, thank God…”

And suddenly the guy was slumped over the edge of his desk, groaning into his magenta coloured sleeve and rolling to look at Keith.

“You alright? It’s only been about… three minutes with me and honestly, I swear that I am not that terrible, I just make depressing jokes, like 24/7.”

“It’s not that, I am just not used to waking up so early. I had to rush here, because I woke up late.”

“It’s noon…”

“Well, yeah, but like… still.”

Keith thought it was a little weird that a teenager who was just recently in high school from what he could guess had that much trouble getting up, but Keith had been no better,  
His brother having to practically drag him out of bed every day to get him in the shower.

“So, Lance… why did you decide to intern with us?”

A beat of silence.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry, I asked why you-”

“No, I heard, but I’m not an intern. I’m being trained to work here full time.”

“Oh. Oh my God, I am so sorry, Allura just made it sound like- but wait… you look so young…”

“I’m twenty-three.”

And Keith was shocked. This dude was literally his age. But he looked so young. What the hell.

“Are you saying I have like… a baby face, because that would suck. Is it the shirt? I feel like it makes my face look chubbier-”

“Lance, I think Keith is trying to say that you have very nice skin. You look so refreshed!”

“I- what- no.”

“Thank you, I moisturize!” The tan boy gave her a sweet smile, one that made him groan internally. _Fuck. Another one lost to that side._

And that… well, that was how Keith’s days at the office began to change, for better or for worse, he did not yet know.

Every single day, he seemed to stuck with teaching Lance something new, the guy actually caught on very quick, almost no more misunderstandings appearing in their path since that first day.

“Hey, uh, Keith?” Lance called, sticking his head into the cubicle, looking a touch rumpled and messy. “Do you maybe have a pen I can borrow really quick?”

He wordlessly stuck his cup of pens out, allowing the brunette to come inside and take whichever seemed to suit his tastes or needs. He gave him a grateful smile, walking back into the open space of the office with a promise to bring the pen back when he was finished.

But then Keith noticed it, a hand coming up to cover his eyes.

_He had just let Lance use one of his pens._

They weren’t anything special, they’d been on sale at Walmart and he’d picked up a set, which he immediately fell in love with. Sure, the caps got fucked up sometimes and you had to scribble on the margins of some sheets to get the ink to come back, but… they were perfect. They were so shitty, but they got the job done and it was perfect. And he didn’t let anyone use them.

Those pens were his favourite and he didn’t want any of them to break somehow, but… he’d just… he’d just let Lance use it like he’d asked for a paperclip. It was insane. What happened? And it’s not like he can just go and take back his pen, because then that really hot guy will think he is weird.

From that point on though… it couldn’t have been a coincidence. Lance asked him for a pen nearly every day, always would bring it back… however, he will never forgot the look of fear on Lance’s face when they got into a board meeting and Allura had told him to take notes, because it was his first meeting, but he didn’t have a pen. He had silently slid his pencil pouch over to Lance, trying not to blush and ignore the shocked looks he was getting from Allura and Coran.

Keith was aware of how odd he was acting, how utterly ridiculous… they were just pens. And it wasn’t like Lance knew of his affliction to sharing them anyways. He was being stupid, giving himself some odd sort of relief that didn’t even make sense, eyes dragging along the long and tan fingers that wrapped around the stem of his blue pen, the sparkly one the other had taken a liking to.

It was no lie or surprise that he found Lance attractive, Allura had told him the man was his type before they’d even met, but… he couldn’t quite figure out why he was so hung up on this whole thing. He was just some guy he was training and they were just ink pens. But Keith’s heart kept beating every time he thinks of the fact that he so willingly let Lance use one, not even thinking that time he’d first agreed.

And so, when the meeting was done, Keith’s ears were bright red, because Lance had absentmindedly pressed the end of his pen up against his lower lip, tapping it in some rhythmic pattern he couldn’t discern, but didn’t fail to give him shivers. He had leaned over, ripping the pen from Lance’s fingers and stormed out, internally screaming at himself for making a huge spectacle of himself.

All he could really do was return to his office, lay his head on his desk and quietly mumble and groan into his elbow until he got over how damn embarrassed he was. However, after passing the thirty minute mark and still seeing those plush pink lips in the back of his mind…? He gave up on the embarrassment passing anytime soon.

It only got worse though, when the object of his thoughts appeared in the doorway, an odd kind of expression on his face.

“Hey, Keith…? I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean to do that, so… I bought you a coffee…”

All he could do was stare in shock at the cup being held out towards him. “Lance… you didn’t do anything?”

“I mean. I pretty much your pen in my mouth, so.”

“Yeah, well… I shouldn’t have freaked out about it, that was stupid.” He sighed, running a hand through the hair that was hanging out of his ponytail and rubbing his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Nah, man, Pidge told me how you are with your pens, I shouldn’t have.”

 

“Oh… so you know about that then?” He blushed, wanting the ground to swallow him whole. What and the hell is wrong with him. He’s literally blushing over a fucking pen and a boy. This is-

“Yeah, she told me when I first started. It’s, uh… it’s why I asked to borrow one… I wanted to see if you would let me…” There was a tinge of something unfamiliar in the guys’ voice… _embarrassment…?_

“What…?”

And yes. It was true… Lance was blushing.

“I kinda wanted an excuse to talk to you. You, uh. You’re yeah?”

“I’m yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“Hey, Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re pretty yeah too…”


End file.
